Fastrack rolls out ad campaign for fitness band Reflex

New Delhi, April 5 -- Fastrack, the youth brand of watches and accessories firm Titan Co. Ltd, has rolled out a campaign to promote its activity tracker Reflex launched in March this year. The six-week campaign focuses on fitness conscious young consumers aged between 17 and 28 years. Priced at Rs1,995, Reflex tracks activity (steps taken), sleep data, calories and also shows notifications for phone calls and text messages.
Made by advertising agency Lowe Lintas, the innuendo-laden television spot opens with a young woman noticing a man who takes a break between his exercise to check Reflex and figure how much of his goals have been achieved. She asks him if he's reached his target, to which he says he has still 350 more calories to burn. Much to the man's surprise, she tells him that she can help burn those remaining calories. The film ends with the line "gear up for some action".
"This campaign marks the entry of Fastrack in the smart wearable category. We are going all out with our media plan making sure customers know that we are taking this category seriously. Television will be our lead medium supported by digital and on-ground," said Ayushman Chiranewala, head of marketing, Fastrack, Titan.
Titan plans to invest 20% of its overall marketing budget on smart wearable category and plans to launch two new products in the category this year.
Fitness and smart wearable category has been growing in India in the last three years with both domestic and international companies entering the segment focusing on fitness bands as well as smart watches.
Titan, which launched a smart watch called Juxt last year, is a late entrant in the activity tracker category. It competes with brands such as Goqii, Xiaomi's Mi Band and California-based brand Fitbit.
Fastrack claims that it has worked on the design, comfort and battery life which makes Reflex a differentiated product.
"Our research shows that within four months of buying a smart wearable 60% of people stop using it. There's a fatigue factor that kicks when it comes to charging the device. Battery life is a huge issue with fitness wearable and we have tried to fix this in Reflex," said Chiranewala.The brand claims that on a single charge Reflex can last for 14 days on normal usage, while under heavy usage, the battery can last for 10 days. The tracker can be charged through any USB adapter or ports on laptops. Reflex is also the first dual-coloured fitness band in the market appealing to fashion conscious young consumers.
"While Reflex can replace the regular watch because it shows day and time but the Indian consumer still has a longer journey to make when it comes to wearing both. Currently, customers substitute their watch with an activity tracker," said Chiranewala.
Reflex is currently available across Fastrack's 160 exclusive retail stores, 460 World of Titan stores, and over 6,000 trade market stores. It is also available at Titan's e-commerce site, Flipkart and Amazon.
According to Counterpoint Research, two million wearables were sold in India in FY2016, with activity trackers contributing 85% and 15% share from smart watches and other wearables, respectively. The firm added that there has been 100% year-on-year increase in the sale of wearables from FY2015.
However, unlike the US or China, the wearable devices market is at a nascent stage in India where economically priced activity trackers are driving sales. Experts believe that for any new brand to succeed in this segment, it needs to leverage advanced technology. "Apart from limited use cases in the activity tracker category, almost all brands offer similar features like calorie counts, call notification and SMS alerts, therefore a new player should look at technologies like artificial intelligence (AI) to provide immersive experience to consumers while differentiating itself from the competitors," said Parv Sharma, analyst, Counterpoint Technology.
Published by HT Digital Content Services with permission from MINT.